The US Department of Justice has asked a federal judge to dismiss the remaining criminal charges against two former Louisville police officers accused of lying in the search warrant application used in the raid that ended in Breonna Taylor's death.
In a motion filed in federal court in Louisville, prosecutors urged the judge to throw out misdemeanor civil rights charges against former detective Joshua Jaynes and former sergeant Kyle Meany.
The filing says the case should be ended "in the interest of justice" and asks for dismissal with prejudice, which would permanently close the matter if granted, according to ABC News.
The request follows earlier court rulings that scaled back more serious felony civil rights counts to lesser offenses tied only to alleged false statements in the warrant documents. Judges had found that prosecutors did not establish a sufficient legal link between the wording of the affidavit and Taylor's killing during the police operation.
Jaynes and Meany were accused of including inaccurate and incomplete information in the affidavit used to obtain a no‑knock warrant for Taylor's apartment. Federal investigators said the affidavit overstated ties between Taylor's home and a suspected drug trafficker, a former boyfriend who did not live at her address at the time.
Taylor, a 26‑year‑old emergency medical technician, was fatally shot shortly after midnight on Mar. 13, 2020, when Louisville officers entered her home to carry out the warrant. She and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were awakened by loud knocking and attempted to find out who was at the door, according to Walker's later statements.
Walker, who legally owned a handgun, fired one shot, saying he believed intruders were breaking in, and the bullet struck Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly was in the leg, the New York Times reported. Three officers responded with dozens of rounds, firing into the apartment and hitting Taylor multiple times; no illegal drugs were recovered, and the planned search was never completed.
Taylor's death drew nationwide attention once details of the raid and the warrant became public, highlighting that she was unarmed and not the target of the drug investigation. The case helped spur large protests and led Louisville's Metro Council to approve "Breonna's Law," which sharply restricted the use of no‑knock warrants in the city.
A hearing on the Justice Department's motion to dismiss the charges against Jaynes and Meany is scheduled for early April, and the counts remain active until the judge rules. Attorneys for the former officers have praised the move, while lawyers for Taylor's family and civil rights groups have criticized it, saying federal authorities are stepping back from accountability, as per National Today.
